The excavations also found sherds of "official" quality, but in more elaborate shapes than found among the surviving whole pieces.

These may have been test pieces that were not put into production.

Their normal practice seems to have been to review the large quantities of "tributary ware" given to them by the provinces making ceramics, effectively as a form of tax.

The court kept what they wanted and redistributed the remainder as part of their lavish gifts to officials, temples, and foreign rulers, and perhaps also selling some.

Most have a distinctive pale "duck-egg" blue glaze, "like the blue of the sky in a clearing amongst the clouds after rain" according to a medieval connoisseur, The shapes include dishes, probably used as brush-washers, cups, wine bottles (carafes in modern terms), small vases, and censers and incense-burners.to the village Lopuhinka - from the yellow sign " Golf GORKI» turn left in the direction : Sovetskaya st . ) is a famous and extremely rare type of Chinese pottery from the Song dynasty, produced for the imperial court for a brief period around 1100.Although stoneware by Western criteria (not a category recognised in traditional Chinese thinking), the wares are fired at a relatively low temperature, and are far from fully vitrified, absorbing water at a "fairly high" rate.Nor is the body free from flaws when examined under magnification.

Prior to his career in commercial real estate, Steve was in the high-tech industry with 10 years at Intel as an engineering manager, followed by working for a start-up and being partner in a sales rep firm for Intel.